In a cellular communication system that supports beamforming, a base station and a terminal may form a plurality of beams for signal transmission and reception. When performing communication using beamforming, the base station and the terminal do not simultaneously form an entire beam but form only one beam or a partial beam at one time. Particularly, each of the base station and the terminal may select an optimal beam of a plurality of beams according to a beamforming protocol and transmit and receive a signal using the selected beam.
In general, a terminal may select an optimal beam through beam tracking and communicate with a base station. For example, in order to perform communication with the base station, the terminal may select an optimal beam of a plurality of transmitting and receiving beams having different directionality and perform communication with the base station through a corresponding beam.
However, in order to select an optimal beam for performing communication with the base station among a plurality of transmitting and receiving beams having different directionality, the terminal should continuously perform beam tracking in the background. In more detail, in order to select an optimal beam, the terminal should continuously perform beam tracking using an entire beam of a plurality of transmitting and receiving beams having different directionality. That is, because the terminal should continuously perform beam tracking using an entire transmitting and receiving beam, a problem that power consumption according to beam tracking increases may occur. Accordingly, when a terminal performs beam tracking, a method of reducing power consumption is needed.
The above information is presented as background information only to assist with an understanding of the present disclosure. No determination has been made, and no assertion is made, as to whether any of the above might be applicable as prior art with regard to the present disclosure.